Lasers have innumerable different applications in modern industry. Lasers are used to directly melt materials and to preheat parts, as well as in a great many different diagnostic and process control applications. Among other things, in the field of welding lasers offer the advantages of precise control over the spatial and temporal delivery of heat energy. One specialized type of laser welding is known as laser cladding, where a beam is used to melt a feedstock material in contact with or prior to contacting a part to be clad. In some instances the feedstock material is supplied in the form of a sprayed or pre-placed powder or the like, and in others in the form of a wire.
Cladding of certain parts has long been recognized as a strategy for improving the performance and/or service life of all or certain areas of a part, and laser cladding techniques can provide for great process efficiency in many instances. U.S. Pat. No. 3,952,180 to Gnanamuthu is directed to a metal layer that is clad to a metal substrate by laying spaced rods or wires of a cladding metal on the substrate surface and scanning the cladding metal with a continuously operating beam, part of which impinges directly on the cladding metal to melt it and part of which impinges on the adjacent surface area of the substrate to improve flow of molten metal thereon. The cladding metal may be fed to the substrate surface in synchronism with beam scanning. The process produces a clad layer of the cladding metal on the substrate characterized by a fine and homogeneous structure within the clad on layer. The surface of the clad may be smoothed by locally oscillating the beam during the course of cladding and/or by multiple passes.
The present disclosure is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discovered by the inventors or that is known in the art.